‘You’re very fortunate to have arrived here on an auspicious day for us,’ Chitragupta (the book-keeper in the Heavens) said to the man standing before him. ‘It’s entirely due to your karma in your previous births you are awarded this kind fate. Your good fortune doesn’t end with it. If you are able to tell us just one act of yours, while you were down there in this birth, of compassion or charity, you’ll have an easy passage,’ he assured.
‘Now jog your memories and get ready. Of course, we’ll check our ‘Book of Deeds’ too. If it’s in there too you’re through.’
Hearing this, he was quite relieved of the tension that had built up since arrival: ‘That’s a cinch,’ he thought.
So he went about rummaging his memories. He thought and thought. Quite surprisingly nothing readily came to his mind. He went far back in years. Still no luck.
Finally he sat down with the head in his hands. An utterly broken man.
Chitragupta took pity on him.
‘Don’t know why, but I’ll do this for you.’
He summoned Sathyavaak, his deputy: ‘Kindly go down and check out if this man had done in his life time at least one act of charity or compassion and quickly report back.’
Just as Chitragupta was done attending to some other chore, Sathyavaak was back.
‘Tell us, Sathyavaak. What have you found out?’
‘My Lord, this was the most difficult assignment I’ve ever done.’
‘Go ahead, let’s have it.’
‘I searched low and high, east and west, south and north. No luck. Not a living soul spoke of any good deed done by this man. Finally I sat down wearily on a boulder in the bed of Cauvery in his village lamenting about the matter to myself and ready to return. Just then a scorpion emerged before me from under the boulder .’
‘Interesting! What does a scorpion have to do with all this?’
‘The scorpion told me an incredible story: One evening, returning from a bath in the river, this man encountered this scorpion on a sandy stretch in his path. Without any hesitation or fear this man rested his foot with all his weight squarely on the scorpion. The scorpion would have arrived here much before this man had the wooden sandal crushed it as intended. Luckily the scorpion sank into the loose sand and escaped unhurt.’
‘I’m not clear how all this…’
‘It’ll be in a moment, my lord. The scorpion said it would be mighty ungrateful of him if he did not narrate this incident to me in this man’s defence.’
The man listening in could make no sense yet of the story neither could he recall such an incident quite common place in his life to deserve special mention. .
Sathyavaak continued: ‘All this seems to have happened when the scorpion found itself highly vulnerable on the sand patch away from any kind of shelter, eyed by its predator – a vulture – already perched near by and set to make a meal of the defenceless scorpion. That’s when the man here caused its burial in the sand from where it emerged only after dark and scampered to safety. It owes its life to this man.’
The man almost swooned at the end of the story.
‘Yes, a truly incredible a story you’ve brought back, Sathyavaak!
Chitragupta turned to the man: ‘This one act of yours, completely unintended, saves you from the clutches of Yama. You’ll have a safe passage as I had promised. But it makes me sad you wasted a life-time of opportunities. Do you know the planet earth is the only place in the entire creation where you could cause happiness to others and feel it come back and bathe you in its warm glow?’ And it’s so easy! I hope your story reaches others to mend their ways while there’s still time.’
The man doubled in remorse walked away following his escort.
End
Source: Image from moviegalleri.net (cinemakeldam_randi_movie_rajendra_prasad_master_bharath_9918)
More about Chitrgupta (Wiki): Chitragupta (Sanskrit: चित्रगुप्त, ‘rich in secrets’ or ‘hidden picture’) in the Hindu pantheon of gods is known to be incredibly meticulous, and with his pen and paper he tracks every action of every sentient life form, building up a record of them over the course of their life so that when they die the fate of their soul can be easily determined between Heaven or Hell. These perfect and complete documents are referred to in mystical traditions as the Akashic records, and as they contain the actions of each person from birth to death, they can be said to contain every action taken in the universe.
Sanmargam 